‘The challenge is to ensure the anticipated spin-off jobs stay here’

The European Operations Centre of PayPal is a 10-minute walk from Dundalk Institute of Technology (DkIT) where many of the international students were interested to hear that the company is to recruit another 400 staff.

Darshan Patel, 18, came to Dundalk from India to study mechanical engineering. He decided to study in Ireland rather than America, as his parents had suggested, because of the presence of companies like Google, PayPal, Facebook and eBay.

“Ireland is the hub of engineering. My family are all engineers so I came here to DkIT to study mechanical engineering. There are good opportunities for jobs after my studies are complete. I plan to stay here after my studies,” he said yesterday.